Vehicle bomb kills 2 women in south Thailand

8 other civilians wounded

HAT YAI, Thailand, July 23, (AP): A bomb hidden in a pickup truck exploded in Thailand’s violence-plagued south Wednesday, killing two women and wounding eight other civilians, police said.

Suspected Islamic insurgents detonated the improvised explosive device while the vehicle was parked near a cockfighting ground in Pattani province’s Kok Pho district, police Col Chamlong Suwalak said.

He said two women, aged 31 and 74, were killed and a 12-year-old girl was among those severely hurt in the Wednesday attack. Another woman and six men were the others injured.

More than 5,000 people have been in Thailand’s three Muslim-dominated southernmost provinces since an insurgency erupted in 2004. The years ago and have since lost most large towns to a 22,000strong UN-backed African Union force, fighting alongside government soldiers.

But they still hold sway in vast swathes of the rural hinterland from which they regularly launch guerrilla raids.

Recent Shebab attacks in Somalia have targeted key areas insurgents often target soldiers, police and civil servants, but civilians, both Buddhist and Muslim, bear the brunt of their attacks.

There has been a spurt of attacks since the beginning of the Ramadan holy month on June 29. On the first day, one soldier and one civilian were killed in separate drive-by shootings in Yala and Pattani provinces, and on June 30, a group of unidentified gunmen opened fire at a mosque in Pattani province, killing one man and wounding another.

Buddhist vigilantes are believed responsible for some of the violence.

The insurgents are believed to be seeking a separate state, though they are not united and their goals and leadership are murky. of government and security forces in an apparent bid to discredit claims by the authorities and AU troops that they are winning the war.

While the AU force launched a fresh offensive in March against Shebab bases, seizing a series of towns, the insurgents have largely fled in advance and suffered few casualties. Residents of Mogadishu prepare to remove the body of female MP and former singer Sado Ali Warsame after gunmen opened fire at her car on July 23, killing her and her driver in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu. The shooting, with gunmen spraying her car with bullets before escaping, is the latest in a string of shooting or bombings

targeting government officials. (AFP)